Attention meat-lovers, your favourite weekend of the year is coming up. Downtown Sudbury Ribfest returns for a ninth year Sept. 2-4, on the Labour Day long weekend.
The festival runs 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.
Six ribbers will be set up once again on Elgin Street — Boss Hog's BBQ, Crabby's BBQ Shack, Jack the Ribber, Ribs Royale BBQ, Texas Rangers and Smokehouse Bandits.
They'll be competing for awards handed out for best ribs, best chicken, best sauce and the coveted People's Choice Award — the public has a chance to vote on that last one.
With about 50,000 people coming out to the event in recent years, it's one of the biggest festivals in Northern Ontario.
“A lot of people come from out of town,” said Downtown Sudbury executive director Maureen Luoma.
“It's not just our local residents only. We've had people from Newfoundland come, from Quebec. We've had people who have been on a holiday, heard about it, and took a side trip to come to our Ribfest.”
While Ribfest is, of course, mostly about the ribs, there's plenty of other things going on as well.
One of the more popular components is the car and motorcycle show put on by Sudbury Classic Cruisers.
The club's president, Gary Lonsberry, said he expects 150 vehicles to be on display, especially if it's a sunny weekend.
“There's no generation gap with old cars,” he said. “Young people like them, old people like them. People just enjoy looking at cars. They don't build them like that anymore. They're totally different.”
Ribfest also includes a full slate of live music starting 12 p.m. Friday and lasting until 5 p.m. Sunday afternoon.
While most of them are local musicians, Ribfest has brought in tribute bands as headliners. Virtual Journey (a Journey tribute) plays Friday night and Triple X (a ZZ Top tribute) plays Saturday night.
Sudbury resident Jim Anderson — a.k.a. Gospel Elvis — has two slots in the musical lineup. As his stage name implies, he's an Elvis tribute artist that specializes in Elvis' gospel music.
“They tell me it's the best thing that's been done with ribs since God made the first woman out of one,” he jokes, when asked about Ribfest.
Ribfest is also family friendly. Science North is bringing in its Mighty Machines interactive exhibit for the occasion, and there'll be wagon rides, inflatables, face-painting, Amtgard demonstrations and more.
Part of the proceeds go to support Canadian Red Cross' seniors transportation and disaster relief programs in the Sudbury area. Last year, Ribfest was able to present the organization with a $10,000 cheque.
In exchange, Canadian Red Cross oversees the festival's volunteer co-ordination.
“We have well over 130 volunteers,” said David St. Georges, community services co-ordinator with Canadian Red Cross.
“One year we did well over 600 hours of volunteer service over the weekend — that's from set-up to tear-down. It is a tremendous amount of effort. If you think about that many man-hours, it wouldn't be possible without the volunteers.”
If you'd like to volunteer for Ribfest, contact the Canadian Red Cross at 705-674-0737. Full details of the festival are available on its Facebook page.
